Are Online Prescriptions Safe? The recent negative media pointed at Canadian Pharmacy mail order prescription services has caused some people to be a little leery of them. Customs has on occasion, confiscated medications crossing the border because required documentation was missing or incorrect. Another issue with mail order services is that some do not supply the identical medications. And of course there is always some rotten apple working the angles. There has been much ado lately about Canadian Pharmacy Online medications. Everyone is concerned about the rising costs of prescription medication. As the American public and particularly the "Baby Boomers" age, more medication is often required to maintain quality of life and to control chronic illness. Many do not have proper prescription drug insurance coverage. Some people have turned to Asian mail order medication services only to learn that what they received was the wrong medication or did not contain the correct dosage as prescribed by their U.S. doctor. Asian and Mexican mail order medication services are not governed by the same strict guidelines as those in the U.S. and those that control the Canadian Pharmacy industry.       Public Safety of Drugs FDA continually assesses the safety of the products it regulates and responds to safety reports by taking actions such as, providing important product safety information to the public, making changes in labeling, requiring a product design change, or withdrawing a product from the market. FDA promptly issues Safety Alerts, Public Health Advisories, Recalls, Talk Papers, and Notices in an effort to inform the public about patient safety issues as they are identified.    In May 1999, FDA released a public document entitled, "Managing the Risks from Medical Product Use: Creating a Risk Management Framework." This document is significant because it framed FDA's role in medical product risk management and included many recommendations that were incorporated into the QuIC response to the IOM report. Most importantly, it antedated the release of the IOM report on medical errors and demonstrated that FDA was proactive in thinking about the issue of patient injury due to medical products.